Friday, 20 March 2009

The launch of the Rent Index heralds the arrival of the first index of 'actual' residential private sector rents in England and Wales.

There are some letting sites that have started to show data for advertised rents. However, as a true reflection of market trends, an advertised rent can be very different from the final agreed rent, particularly in this uncertain economic climate.

This is where we stand alone as the only index of 'actual rental values'.

For years the UK has been without an accurate and up to date measure of private rental data. There have been various attempts to generate an up to date record of private sector rents in the UK which because of the amount of work involved, and all have ended in failure.

The Rent Index is looking to change this. Thanks to the power of the Internet, data has been captured from thousands of UK landlords creating Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreements, used to create their tenancies. This data is then aggregated through a daily calculation, to give an up to date picture of the average rent in England and Wales. The figures are then analysed to show 1 month, 3 month and 12 month changes in rents.

"We have been aware for some time, that unlike house prices there was a definite shortage of information on residential rents. When trying to find out what the average rent was, nobody seemed to know."

"We wanted to provide a single figure for UK private sector rents that would tell people at a glance what the average rent was, and whether rents were going up or down, a kind of FTSE 100 for private sector rents"

The Rent Index launches at the end of March and uses data from thousands of UK landlords.